I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

Papa John's Schnatter Says He Will Honor Obamacare And Give Health Insurance To All Employees

In an op-ed written by Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter and published in The Huffington Post on Tuesday, Mr. Schnatter suggests that his intentions regarding the implementation of Obamacare for Papa John’s employees have been misunderstood and that he plans to provide health care benefits to all of his corporate employees along with all employees working in his company owned stores.

Writes Schnatter-

“Papa John’s, like most businesses, is still researching what the Affordable Care Act means to our operations. Regardless of the conclusion of our analysis, we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100% of Papa John’s corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984.”

This is good news, indeed.

Papa John’s—and Mr. Schnatter himself—has been the subject of considerable criticism, including in this column , as a result of what has been believed to be his plan to avoid the requirements of the Affordable Care Act by cutting back employee schedules to less than 30 hours per week. Such a move would have exempted Papa John’s from the law’s requirements, resulting in employees not only being denied healh insurance but further punished by losing a large percentage of their income.

According to Mr. Schnatter, his plans with respect to his employees—and the requirement to provide them with a health care benefit—were taken out of context based on remarks he made when speaking to an entrepreneur class at a Florida college.

“Schnatter estimated that these rising costs could adversely affect his workers. Since only full-time employees working 30 hours or more must be covered under the new law, he said he expects franchise owners will be forced to cut employees’ hours because they can’t afford the costs of health insurance plans. ”That’s probably what’s going to happen,” he said according to NaplesNews.com. “It’s common sense. That’s what I call lose-lose.”

And then there was the conference call with Papa John’s shareholders earlier this year where Schnatter added, “We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry. But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare. If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs (emphasis added) and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders best interests.”

On that same call—and on other occasions—Schnatter indicated that the additional cost for a pizza could rise by 11 to 14 cents per pizza, however, Forbes writer Caleb Melby estimates those costs to be closer to 4 cents per pie.

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Of course he’s going to be obeying the law. His plan to cut hours IS obeying the letter of the law, if not the spirit. It never ceases to amaze me when people say something, then later backtrack and say they never meant it at all, and we’re ridiculous for thinking they did.

Whether it’s Schnatter’s plan to do whatever he can to get around anything that might affect his bottom line, Romney’s “47%” quip, or me shooting off my mouth after a night of drinking–all of those represent situations where we should take the person’s word at face-value.

“Papa” Schnatter because his call makes it abundantly clear that the shareholder’s interests are going to be served first, not the customers and not the employees. Romney’s because he thought everything was private and off the record–and that’s when people are more apt to act like they really are. And me drinking because, hey, I’m thinking those things anyway–the alcohol just makes me open my mouth and say them.

Don’t punish your local franchisee for the comments of the corporate HQ. My local Denny’s — there are two near me and, as a single person, I eat there regularly — are owned by the same fellow and he provides company-paid health care insurance to all of his workers, even part time. This is true for the local IHOP, too. The local competitor, Mr. Perry’s, is family owned and Mr. Perry, who died about three years ago, paid for health insurance for all his workers for decades and the family still does. To keep employees, the local dinners need to keep up with Mr. Perry’s (try their house-made biscuits, they are better than my grandmothers!).

I can’t speak about my local Papa Johns as the nearest one is simply too far away for me to bother with just for pizza and there is a family-owned pizza place just down the block from me with absolutely incredible pizza.

Like the many here, for some reason I believe his “I’ll cut the hours” more than the “I’ll give everyone Health care”. Maybe I’m to cynical but I’ll need to see proof before I go to Poppa’s again.

I think I’d be a little more forgiving if he’d been a little more honest with the obvious mistake that he made. Even so It’s nice to see a positive social change as these businesses realize that they have customers who won’t turn a blind eye to unjust acts.

Actually I have no problem with a business passing costs on – businesses do it all the time with other things. What annoyed/concerned me most was the hatefulness and vitriol with which these CEO’s made their comments. They were hateful towards not only their staff but customers and that never works for me.

On a separate but sort of related note – I think that even as recently as 5-10 years ago, these guys could have said things like this and got away with it because there was not the same connection to social media that there is today. Like-minded people are able to get together and voice their opinions in unison which is a lot more threatening to companies/CEO’s than a few dozen letters through the mail which they then, no doubt used as toilet paper! These online petitions can, at times get a bit tedious and often ridiculous, but sometimes – just sometimes they make a difference and I think they may have done so in the instance of Obamacare.

I am delighted that America has now joined the real world and is giving its people healthcare – it is nothing short of disgusting that it has taken this long – well done to President Obama and all those who have fought so vehemently for it and thank you Mr. Ungar for so often laying information out so clearly and being one of the few voices of reason! :-)

It was bad timing. The right is too pathetic to support anything right now. They are slowly beginning to raise their heads from the fetal position. But it will be years before they move. Romney really destroyed the rights ability to have confidence in itself. & for the most part it continues to double down on stupid as if Romney had been made a martyr.